Special instructions for presenters at online workshops

Giving a talk in an online workshop has a different feel compared to a room full of people. The primary difference is that it is difficult to get a feel for feedback from the audience. However, the screen-sharing platform, Elluminate, has several features that will allow you to interact with participants and this can make for a more successful and natural presentation.

You are encouraged to make your presentation interactive and you can ask different types of questions during your presentation. Elluminate has features where audience members can 'raise their hand,' as well as polling features that allow responses to yes/no questions or multiple choice questions. For open-ended queries, there is a chat box for typed-in responses, which will appear in a side panel next to the power point slides. Participants can also draw or type directly on top of the power point slides, post pictures, or share files from their computers. Successful presentations have periodic slides that specifically ask for responses from the audience.

During your talk, participants will type questions and comments into the chat box (which you can monitor if you would like), and one of the workshop conveners will serve as a moderator during your talk. You may opt to leave the questions until the end or respond as they come in, whichever suits you best.

Another practice that helps the online experience feel less distant is to include a photo of yourself on your title slide. That way folks have some sense of who is speaking to them.

The Elluminate platform will project your power point slides. You will have control of the forward and backward buttons to click through your slides. There is a laser pointer feature. Note that animations do not work at all. Instead of animating one slide with several layers, you will need separate slides for each layer or "click." Embedded files such as video and music will not work, but we can post those separately. Be sure to arrange that with the workshop staff ahead of time.

We will host a rehearsal session prior to the workshop so that you can become familiar with the technology and take a test drive through your slides. Your power point file must be uploaded to the workshop website well in advance of your speaking slot. Power point files will be posted on the workshop program page for archiving and reference.

Use of Images in PowerPoint Files

Because we post presentation files on the web, presenters will need to make sure that each of the individual elements in the presentation is something you are allowed to share on the web. In some cases it may be necessary to find substitutes or remove specific images (such as things you've copied out of textbooks or images from journal articles) before it's appropriate to share them on the web. Many things that are fair use to include in a presentation you're giving to a room full of workshop participants aren't fair use to share with the world via the web.

You'll want to provide attribution for each element within the file (e.g. with a note at the bottom of each PowerPoint slide that has an image, or in a single attribution slide at the end) for all those elements you didn't create yourself. When the file is uploaded you'll need to be sure the provenance/acknowledgment information for the file as a whole points people to look inside the file for these details: "This PowerPoint developed by Chris Smith except where otherwise noted within the presentation."

More information on SERC copyright pointers

Finding images that you can legally use

There a number of strategies for finding images you can use in your web pages without violating copyright law. Keep in mind that by default you have to assume that any image you find on the web is copyrighted and can not be used unless there is an explicit indication that it can be. So the trick is to find images where someone has gone to the trouble to be explicit about how you may reuse their image.

• Use images you've taken or created.
• Public domain images such as government agencies, although please check the agency website for use guidelines and proper attribution format.
  
• Search image archives which provide clear guidance on how each image may be reused. Some good sources:
• Wikipedia --most images in wikipedia will give you explicit information about how they may be reused if you look at the image detail page (just click on the image to get there). Many of the images are in the public domain, or offered under a variety of creative commons licenses.
• Creative Commons Directory of images archives thousands of sites which offer images under various creative commons licenses.
• Flickr Many images on this photo archiving site are offered under useful licenses. You can use the advanced search to limit yourself to creative commons licensed photos.
• Wikipedia's public domain image page Another directory of sites which have images with clear reuse information.

Of course just because you've found an image on one of these pages doesn't mean you're free to use it as you like. You'll have to abide by whatever restrictions they've indicated. In most cases you'll need to provide attribution (putting that in an image caption is usually a good solution). For images that allow reuse with attribution but aren't clear who you should give credit to it's normally sufficient to provide a link to the site where you found the image. In all cases you should be careful when uploading the file to provide accurate information in the provenance and reuse fields of the upload dialog about where the image came from and how others may reuse the image.